


waiting

by starbear (panda_hiiro)



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied Soriku, Introspection, Post Re:Mind, shhhh kairi is sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panda_hiiro/pseuds/starbear
Summary: Riku visits Kairi twice a week.She can't hear him and he knows that, but talking is better than sitting in silence, so he tells her whatever news he can - about their friends, about the worlds, about the search that has dragged on for so long now. It feels strange to hear his own voice fill the empty space, and Kairi sleeps through it all, her expression peaceful and unchanging.It makes him want to scream.
Relationships: Kairi & Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 7





	waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Someday, Kingdom Hearts will give us one scrap of Kairi and Riku interacting. 
> 
> Someday.
> 
> In the meantime, I have Some Feelings about their situation post Re:Mind. Please have them. 
> 
> (As always, comments and kudos make my whole day! And, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @starbearstudio if you also have KH Feelings)

_And I watch them burn_

_When will I ever learn_

_If I wait it doesn't mean_

_You will return_

\- Norah Jones, _Waiting_

* * *

Riku visits Kairi twice a week.

They have a room for her in the castle, decorated in pale pink and white with a wide window that looks out over the water gardens. She'd like that, he thinks - it's a definite improvement over the dark, drab gray of the laboratory where this all started. He wonders if it's the same room she had as a child; he wonders if there's anyone now that would know, or if she’d even recognize it if it is.

Each time he comes he brings her flowers that he buys from Aerith, who's opened a flower shop part-time and delights in picking out little bouquets for him. Aerith tells him that each flower means something, that a bouquet is like a silent conversation: delicate white blossoms that symbolize dedication, sprigs of purple that say ‘thinking of you.’ Would Kairi know what they meant, if she could see them? Would he be able to say any of those things out loud to her, if she could hear?

He takes last week's flowers out of the ceramic vase on the window sill, replaces them with the fresh bunch, and pulls up a chair. A host of machines sit clustered around her bed, angular and vaguely menacing in this light, airy space. A steady series of electronic beeps tells him that her condition is stable, and nothing has changed. 

It’s been this way, every day, for almost a year now. 

"I went to Olympus this week," he says. "King Mickey was there with Donald and Goofy. They've almost completely finished the repairs in Thebes. You should see that statue of Hercules; it's kind of ridiculous."

She can't hear him and he knows that, but talking is better than sitting in silence, so he tells her whatever news he can - about their friends, about the worlds, about the search that has dragged on for so long now. It feels strange to hear his own voice fill the empty space, and Kairi sleeps through it all, her expression peaceful and unchanging.

It makes him want to scream.

Sometimes he wants to just grab her, to shake her until her eyes open. He can't fault her for what she did, and the rational part of him understands that she's fighting in her own way - and yet.

And yet.

Part of him hates her for it, too.

“Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about when we were kids.” Riku looks out the window as he speaks, at the clear, cloudless stretch of blue sky. “Do you remember that raft we were trying to build? I wonder sometimes what would have happened if we’d actually finished it, if the three of us had just sailed off somewhere together. Do you think we would have made it anywhere?” 

He looks back at her, reaches for her hand - so small, so cold - and closes his own around it.

“Do you think things would have turned out differently?” 

She looks peaceful lying there, still save for the gentle, steady rise and fall of her breathing. It reminds Riku uncomfortably of that time - it seemed so long ago now - when she'd lost her heart, and he'd sheltered her empty body. It reminds him too of that year Sora spent in a similar state, locked in place while Namine rebuilt him piece by piece. The things Riku had done to let Sora sleep peacefully back then still haunted his own nightmares.

And now here was Kairi, sleeping, leaving Riku to once again stand sentinel.

Maybe he was starting to get used to this.

He doesn't want to resent her. It was harder for her than for anyone else - Riku knows better than anyone how it shattered her heart into pieces to lose Sora again, how the guilt hung around the broken fragments like a stone. It doesn't matter how much they all tried to reassure her, how much they tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault - he'd traded his life for hers. There were no gentle words any of them could say that would change that one cold, immutable fact. Could Riku really blame her then, for choosing sleep? For choosing anything that would assuage, in even a small way, that pain? And, who knew, maybe it was the right thing to do - maybe she would be able to chase Sora down that way, to connect her heart to his again. Riku doubts it, but he bites his tongue, because what good will it do to question her at this point? It's her decision to make, and it's already been made. All he can do now is wait, and search on his own.

But he can't help the ugly feeling that clutches at his heart when he visits her, the bitter taste of bile that sometimes rises up, unexpectedly, in the back of his throat. He can't help feeling like he's that scared kid again, desperate not to be left behind, willing to do anything to fill the loneliness eating away at his heart.

He _has_ been left behind. 

That was what they both chose to do. 

“I guess if we’d really thought about it, that raft wasn’t actually big enough to hold three people, anyway. Or did you know that already?” 

Surely, at some point, somewhere along the way, Riku and Kairi had been friends.

He remembers growing up with Sora sandwiched in between them, the three of them inseparable as they rolled in the surf and stretched out on the warm sand. He remembers all the lengths he went to trying to save her, trying to bring her back, trying to prove that he could.

But now?

Something has lodged between them - space, distance, the inescapable flow of time - a wedge slowly driving them ever further apart, like different specks of stardust trapped in the slow and inexorable expansion of a cold universe. Or maybe it was something more simple and yet infinitely more insidious, nothing more than a feeling that he hesitated to put a name to. 

Riku laughs and it comes out as a dry, bitter sound, harsh and ugly enough that he covers his face with his hand as if that might stop it.

“Doesn’t matter, huh? Turns out, neither one of us got to keep him.” 

The words hang, heavy and pointed, in the air. Riku curls inward, gripping Kairi’s hand like a lifeline.

"I wish you would wake up," he says, softly, as if anyone were there to hear it. "I need you to wake up."

The only response is the quiet, steady sound of her breath. He stays there like that for a while, long enough, he thinks, for the air to clear - as if such a thing were possible. 

He stands then, wipes at his face, and leaves her to sleep on. 


End file.
